Indiana University School of Journalism

Home » Alumni News » Alumni attend Centennial Road Show in NYC

Photo by Caitlin Ruttle

Leslie Silver, BAJ’05, left, and Karen Stone, BAJ’04, get reacquainted. Stone is the president of the Metro New York alumni chapter.

Related Learn more about the school's centennial celebration. Law, wine bring St. Louis alumni together (May 15) Take It Easy Open July 28 (May 9) Brinkman inducted into Kansas hall of fame (April 25)

The Centennial Road Show in New York City Tuesday provided the fourth such opportunity for alumni from several generations to meet one another and reconnect with the school.

New York area alumni joined journalism dean Brad Hamm, associate professor Owen V. Johnson and others from the school to talk about the 100th anniversary of journalism at IU. They started by celebrating some recent achievements, as Caitlin Keating addressed the crowd. She is one of three IU students who will compete in the national writing competition phase of the Hearst Journalism Program Awards segments in June.

“Professor French also reminded us that stories rarely fall in your lap, you have to get up and go," she said of visiting professor Tom French, who coached many of the students who won in the Hearst competition. IU won the national writing championship for the second year in a row this year and Keating, Danielle Paquette and Caitlin Johnston will compete at the national level with five other students in June. “We might soon have as many national press championship trophies as the basketball team.”

Hamm also talked to the gathering, connecting the alumni’s achievements with these recent kudos.

“A number of you in this room have done many different kinds of things, and we're quite proud of that," he said. “We need to continue to be among the best and I hope that you will help us in that goal."

IU Alumni Association executive director J.T. Forbes was on hand to cite the numbers: IU journalism alumni are in every state and in more than 154 countries, and are 10,000 strong worldwide.

"I think we really do form a unique and really special community,” he said. “The people I meet are elite, without being elitist. We're known for our work ethic and integrity, and I think that makes us very special."

Photo by Caitlin Ruttle

From left are Nancy A. Dean, BA’61; Jill Stempel, granddaughter of John Stempel, BA’23, who led the Department of Journalism from 1938-68; Ron Johnson, current Director of IU Student Media; and Ben Richardson, Jill Stempel’s husband and CNNMoney.com’s New York sales director.

Johnson, who has collected and researched much of World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle’s work, told the audience a bit about Pyle’s work in the city. Pyle attended IU in the 1920s, went on to work as a reporter and editor, and gamed national fame and a Pulitzer Prize writing about World War II from the soldiers’ point of view. He spent a few years before the war working in New York.

"Pyle had strong feelings about New York,” Johnson said. “Sometimes he hated the place. He didn't do the reporting here that he loved to do.”

But, Johnson said, on some points, Pyle’s feelings didn’t waver.

"There is no doubt that Pyle loved IU," he said.

As part of the school’s observation of 100 years of IU journalism this year, it has staged road shows in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and St. Petersburg, Fla. A centennial celebration in Bloomington Sept. 16-18 will round out the year’s events.

—Thanks to Kristi Oloffson, BAJ'09, who contributed to this report.

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